roads safer

Republished from the Wall St. Journal

By BETSY MCKAY

Sept. 28, 2014

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a new message for the developing world's metropolises: make your roads safer.

Mr. Bloomberg is expected to announce Monday that his philanthropic organization will spend $125 million during the next five years on programs to reduce traffic deaths and injuries in 10 cities in lowand middle-income countries.

Traffic fatalities are a major cause of preventable death globally—in the top 10 with killers such as heart disease and HIV/AIDS.

The World Health Organization estimates that traffic incidents will be linked to 1.4 million deaths in 2015. More than 90% of traffic fatalities occur in low- and middle-income countries, where traffic laws haven't kept up with the growing number of vehicles clogging roads, the agency said. As many as 50 million people a year globally suffer road-related injuries.

Mr. Bloomberg's foundation, which funds programs to address other global public health concerns such as tobacco use, has given $125 million since 2010 to promote tougher drunken-driving laws, train traffic police, improve seat-belt use and other interventions in 10 countries that represent half of the globe's annual traffic deaths.

Now, with its second round of funding, it plans to focus on addressing those problems in urban areas, many of which are growing rapidly as young people flock to big cities to find work. Bloomberg Philanthropies said it would invite 20 cities with populations of more than two million to apply for grants; 10 will be chosen by next January, said Kelly Henning, who heads the philanthropy's public-health programs.

She declined to provide a list of cities the foundation is inviting, but pointed to Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, where it has done work, as "the kinds of places we're reaching out to." Bloomberg Philanthropies will pay for embedded staff to work full-time in city governments on road-safety issues, training for traffic police, and other technical assistance, she said.

The shift reflects Mr. Bloomberg's belief in municipal government as a powerful change agent. "City governments can be especially effective at putting those measures in place, because they are often able to move faster and more efficiently than other levels of government," he said in a statement.

Mr. Bloomberg will return at the end of the year to head Bloomberg LP, the financial data and media firm he founded and still controls.

Some of the new road-safety money also will be used to continue the foundation's efforts to strengthen federal road-safety laws, Dr. Henning said.

The new strategy of focusing on cities is smart, said Piyush Tewari, founder and chief executive of SaveLIFE Foundation, a nongovernmental organization in India that used a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to push for a new national road-safety law.

India has one of the world's highest tolls from traffic fatalities annually.

A draft of the law has been released and includes heavy fines for speeding, drunken driving, running traffic lights and overloading vehicles, Mr. Tewari said. It also includes a new licensing system for drivers, child restraints, and measures to protect cyclists and pedestrians.

Its success will depend in part on how well it is implemented in the country's urban areas, Mr. Tewari said.

"By 2030, Delhi and Mumbai will have over 30 million people each," he said. "Even when this law comes in it will only be as good as it is enforced. You have to work with cities on that."

Bloomberg Philanthropies said other countries where it has funded projects also have strengthened road-safety laws during the past five years. China made drunken driving a criminal offense in 2011.

Vietnam imposed penalties in 2013 on motorcyclists who don't wear proper helmets.

Seat-belt use and use of child restraints improved sharply in two regions of Russia after marketing campaigns and tougher law enforcement were brought in as part of a Bloomberg-funded road-safety project, said Elena Yurasova, coordinator for the project at the WHO's Russia office.

Before a series of ads and other marketing campaigns, people didn't understand why child seats and other restraints are important, she said. In Ivanovo, a region about 220 miles northeast of Moscow that was part of the project, 93% of children were transported using child restraints in May 2014 compared with 20% in 2011, Ms. Yurasova said.

"They thought it was expensive. People were used to holding children in their arms," she said, adding that authorities plan to expand the project to other regions.

Republished...